


under your boot-soles

by lurkingspecter (orphan_account)



Category: Us (Movie 2019)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lurkingspecter
Summary: As a child, Adelaide wasn’t sure what to think of the girl she buried.





	under your boot-soles

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 100 fandoms challenge on dreamwidth
> 
> prompt: distance

Adjusting to her new live above ground was difficult, but Adelaide managed. She soaked up language like a sponge. Her speech therapist had nothing but glowing reports. Her parents were relieved.

They put her back in school. The other kids found her quiet and a little strange, but she was smart and could be charming when it counted, so she got by okay. She spent afternoons in the library catching up and learning about her new world. Eventually, she even made a few friends, girls who were outgoing and kind and willing to show her the ropes.

When no one was looking, she stood, arms outstretched, palms to the sun, soaking it in.

She hardly spared a thought for the girl she had replaced.

*

Her thirteenth birthday came, and with it, the usual doubts and anxieties. For the first time, when she thought of the other girl, she felt something other than triumph and relief. Something queasy and uncertain that stuck in her throat, something she couldn’t quite bring herself to acknowledge.

If the other girl hadn’t wanted to get trapped down there, she told herself, then she should have fought back harder. Adelaide had won the right to this name. It was as simple as that. Besides, what else was she supposed to have done? Let the chance pass her by, stay down there forever? No way.

The uneasy feeling remained, no matter how many times she said this to herself. She did her best to ignore it.

Around this time she became fixated on underworld stories—especially ones about Persephone. At first she identified with her, this girl forced to live half her life underground, who she imagined must have greeted the sun with relief. For a time she took to sticking the little purple flowers that grew in her front lawn between her braids. Her friends said that they looked pretty, but when they asked why she did it, she just smiled and shrugged. It was fun, at that age, to have a secret little game all for herself.

It dawned on her later, when summer came and the flowers died and the fantasy wasn’t fun anymore, that if anyone was Persephone, it was more likely her other, coming back after being tricked and bound.

A terrifying image flashed through her mind: the girl, tracking her across the land, angry red flowers blooming in her wake.

*

Spring came again, and with it the new associations of her original’s return. She was reading outside when a sudden thought made her stomach clench: _If I got out of the tunnels, then she can too. She could be anywhere._

Her mind went blank with panic. She imagined that her original was watching her from the bushes, peering between the bright pink azaleas that had delighted her only a few minutes before. Hands sweaty and shaking, heart pounding, she quickly shut her book and went inside. Her mom saw her anxious expression and offered her milk and cookies.

Below, she knew, the other girl was tossing aside some cracked and stained old paperback, spinning around, and heading into a room lined with cages.

As the taste of warm chocolate filled her mouth, she tried not to think of meat.

*

The next time the feeling of being watched hit her, she choked down her fear, picked up a rake, and advanced toward the azaleas. She thrashed through them, baring her teeth, a growl simmering in her throat.

There was no one there. Only a trail of ants marched over the small, blank patch of ground between the fence and bushes, populated by scraggly grass and a few wildflowers. Adelaide smiled to herself, wiped the sweat off her forehead, leaned the rake against the fence. _See, silly? Nothing to worry about here._ Even the ants were making a hasty retreat at the sight of her.

She plopped down on the grass and plucked a daisy from the ground. Twirled it between her thumb and forefinger for a bit.

If the girl wasn’t here, then where was she?

Down there, somewhere. Still.

Adelaide laid her head on the warm, dry dirt and closed her eyes. Through one ear she could hear birdsong and the hum of insects, and through the other the rush of her pulse, like the rumble of magma shifting under the earth. The world’s heartbeat trapped within the shell of her ear.

If she could sink down through the soil and limestone and peek into the tunnels, what would she see? The other girl, lying on the dirty tile floor of the laboratory while the tethered tripped over her. Did she hate her, for making her do things like this? Adelaide knew that she had, when it had been the other way around.

She rolled onto her back and reached up, imaging her shadow reaching toward the ceiling, toward her. She let her hand fall back onto her chest. Beneath her palm, her heart beat. Below, the girl’s did, too. Did they beat in sync?

With her eyes closed, she could almost imagine that her hand was on the girl’s heart, or the girl’s hand was on her own.

Hours passed. Her mom called for dinner. When she saw the look on Adelaide’s face and the grass on her jeans, she asked what was the matter, but Adelaide simply shook her head and went to her room.

No one could get a word out of her for the rest of the evening.

*

That night she dreamed that the girl stood over her bed and shoved fistfuls of pomegranate seeds down her throat. They sat in her stomach like lead balls, the weight of them forcing her deeper and deeper into the mattress, and as she struggled against gravity the girl fled, laughing, spinning away on pointe shoes—the most graceful thing Adelaide had ever seen.


End file.
